Calendar Girls

by April Hill

  And, unless she was misjudging Russ Warren’s frame of mind—the experience wasn’t over.

  As it turned out, the whipping was mercifully short. Six or seven scorching strokes, hard, fast, and excruciating. And then, he stopped. Not out of mercy, she suspected, but for practical reasons. The snow was getting worse.

  “As much as I’d like to finish this,” he growled, pulling her up and thrusting the gloves back into her hands, “it’ll have to wait ‘til we get back to the cabin. Pull up your damned pants. We need to get going before this turns into a full-blown blizzard.”

  Julie was about to make a sarcastic remark about the threat he’d made earlier—to make her climb the hill with her pants down—but decided not to push her luck by reminding him. As much as he had seemed to be enjoying “setting her on fire,” the satisfaction of doing it had apparently not improved his mood—or changed his mind.

  “Just so you’ll know, “ he said, shoving her ahead of him up the trail. “We’re not done. I just can’t do my best work when I’m freezing my butt.”

  “I hate you,” she snarled.

  “Not that I give a damn, lady, but you’ re nowhere close to really hating me, yet. Save your breath for when we get back, when I get warmed up. You’re in for the kind of lickin’ that’s gonna’ make you wish you’d never heard my damned name.”

  “I already wish that,” she spat back. “And to think I was actually beginning to like you! If you lay another finger on me, I’ll bring criminal charges for assault and battery, then sue you for every red cent Bernie Madoff didn’t already get!”

  He laughed. “Knock yourself out, lady. Bankrupt me and put me in prison for twenty years. It’ll still be worth it. I’ll just sit there in my lonely prison cell, enjoying my stale bread and water, and relive the memory of you across my knee—with your pants tangled around your ankles, screeching your head off while I blister your arrogant ass with that big, fat wooden hairbrush you brought with you. What’s money for if it’s not to buy a fella a good time now and then?”

  Julie groaned and started walking, encouraged along every few feet by another stinging swat of the belt across her shivering rear end.

  By the time they got back to the cabin, through the deep, drifting snow, they were both exhausted. Russ simply dropped his wet clothes and fell across his bed, too tired and too cold to make good on his threat.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” he warned. “You’ve still got the walloping of your life coming.” He yawned. “Right after I get some sleep.”

  As she undressed, Julie glanced glumly around the room, realizing that they’d never started the fire. It was freezing, and her narrow cot beneath the frosted window suddenly looked very unappealing. Naked and shivering, she gathered her blankets around her and crawled carefully into the bed with her grumpy landlord. When he didn’t object, or even budge, she moved a little closer—just to warm up, she told herself.

  Russ woke a little later and found Julie snuggled under his arm—naked, with her head on his chest. He gently nudged her awake.

  “Is this some kind of bribe?” he asked. “Because if it is, it won’t work. I’m already planning every detail.”

  Julie sighed. “I know. Go back to sleep.”

  A few moments later, though, she tapped him on the back.

  “What?” he growled.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  “You’re gonna be a whole lot sorrier,” he mumbled. “Shut up and go to sleep.”

  “I’ll pay for the damage I did to your truck,” she added quietly. “It may take me a while, but I promise that…”

  Russ heaved a sigh. “Forget it. It was already dented in a couple of places—more than a couple, probably. Besides, that’s what tough, wilderness hardened mountain men drive—paint-skinned pickups with dented fenders. It’s part of our charm.”

  “I’ll leave as soon as the road is clear, if that’s what you want.”

  He turned over and looked at her for a long moment. “It’s not likely to be passable for a week or so, even if the snow stops. You may as well stay long enough to get those pictures you wanted.”

  “You really won’t mind my being here? Even after…?”

  He shrugged. “I’d kind of like to see how things turn out—the pictures, I mean. I found some fresh tracks around back yesterday; probably a couple of black bears.”

  “Are black bears dangerous?”

  He shook his head. “Not if you leave ‘em alone—or leave a peanut butter sandwich lying around where they can smell it.”

  Julie grimaced. “Like the one I threw out the window yesterday?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I’m sorry,” she groaned. “Again. I swear to you I’ll be more careful.”

  Russ grinned. “Glad to hear it. I might just start thinking that you enjoyed what happened, earlier today. Maybe even wanted it.”

  “Not wanted, and definitely not enjoyed,” she replied, flushing visibly, “but maybe needed.”

  Russ got out of bed long enough to get a fire going, then returned to bed. But even with the stove blazing away, the cabin was cold, and he couldn’t help noticing how good Julie’s backside felt against him—still warm, she explained cheerfully, after a recent encounter with her irate landlord. She moved a little closer, and before long—as it generally does—one thing led to another, and another, and…

  * * *

  One week later:

  Russ lifted up on one elbow to watch the blowing snow through the cabin’s small window. “Sorry, babe, but this doesn’t seem to be letting up. It’ll be at least a couple of days before we can get out the door, again. And with the drifts as deep as they are, you’ll be lucky to get any more good shots for at least another week.” He leaned down to kiss his drowsy bedmate’s warm shoulder. “It’s a good thing that check of yours bounced. You’d have never gotten your money’s worth.”

  Julie turned around in bed and kissed him on the back. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” she murmured sleepily. “I can’t remember when I’ve had a nicer time on a business trip. There’s something to be said for hibernating, like this. “

  Russ chuckled. “Is that what we’ve been doing?”

  “Well,” she said, “whatever it is, it’s been a pretty good way of getting to know one another.”

  “I won’t argue with that,” he conceded. “Of course, I used to think that hibernating bears spent most of their time sleeping.” He yawned widely. “I can’t say I’ve gotten a whole lot of sleep while we were getting to know one another.”

  “Is that a complaint?” she asked sweetly.

  “Nope, but I brought a box of books, along, and all this getting to know one another has cut into my reading time. If I’m going to get myself tangled up with a world famous wildlife photographer, and start hanging out at sophisticated New York City cocktail parties…”

  “And why would a tough mountain man like you want to do a stupid thing like that that?” Julie scoffed.

  “Well, for one thing, the lady still owes me for truck repairs. I hear there’s a lot of money in taking pictures of bears and squirrels and what all, when she gets her lazy butt out of bed to do it.” He glanced out the window again. “No big rush, though. It looks like it’s going to be a long winter.”

  She snuggled against him and slipped her arms around his waist. “Not long enough,” she murmured, running her hand down his thigh and between his legs. “And you, Mr. Warren, are wasting valuable time.”

  Russ smiled down at the woman in his bed. Where all this would go, of course, he had no way of knowing for sure, but with plenty of firewood on hand, a well-stocked pantry, and all the peace and quiet a man could ask for, there was more than enough time to find out. The way he was feeling right now, though, Russ couldn’t help thinking that without knowing it, Bernie Madoff had done him a pretty big favor.

  THE END

  February—Emma in: Red Roses For A Blue Lady

  At the risk of sounding like a spoil
sport, I’d like to suggest that the invention of Valentine’s Day wasn’t such a terrific idea. For women, at least. Women who aren’t in love resent it, women who’ve just been dumped get suicidal about it, and certain other women (who shall remain nameless) expect too much from it.

  My story is a case in point:

  I’d been working as a stringer for the Mountain Lakes Herald for just over two weeks when I first met my future husband. Jeff was the Chief of Police in Mountain Lakes at the time, and ours wasn’t the most romantic of meetings, since I was being stopped for speeding, and he was the one doing the stopping. I’d seen him around town, of course, and been interested. A bit of off the record snooping had turned up the information that he was thirty-six, and single. There were around three thousand citizens in Mountain Lakes, and most of them were much older than me, or vastly younger than me. As far as I’d been able to find out, most of the men in town were married, spoken for, and/or insanely fond of hunting and fishing. What all this meant was that I bought frozen entrees by the dozen and whiled away my lonely evenings watching old movies on TV. I had made one friend so far, a cheerfully nosy spinster in her mid-fifties named Verna Bailey, who was also my landlady. I paid far too much for Verna’s back bedroom, and in return, got all the local gossip, whether I wanted it, or not.

  On the afternoon Jeff and I met, I was rushing to interview the head of the state fish hatchery, twenty-five miles north of town, and as usual I was running late for the appointment. The story I was after was a hot one by local standards, though, and seemed worth the risk of driving too fast on a twisting mountain road. The community of Mountain Lakes depended heavily on the fishing and boating crowd for its survival, and the state’s fish and game department had just reported that the area’s trout population was in decline.

  When I explained why I had been going fifty-five in a thirty-mile zone— that I was a member of the press and rushing to meet a man about a fish— the Chief didn’t seem impressed.

  “There’s not as many trout this year than there were last year, and there’ll be even fewer next year than this year,” he remarked as he wrote out the speeding ticket. “That’s not news, it’s local history. Every time they cut back on game wardens to save a few bucks, trout start disappearing, which could make a person think that maybe the honor system isn’t working out too well. Either that, or our boy trout aren’t as excited by our girl trout as they used to be. Do you want a real story? Something sure to get your readers incensed and ready to storm city hall?”

  I said that would be nice, since most of my readers apparently used the pages of the Mountain Lakes Herald to potty-train their puppies.

  “Okay, then,” he said, “here’s your big scoop. The mayor wants to install parking meters on Main Street. Twenty cents an hour.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, so? Twenty cents is pretty cheap.”

  “Not compared to nothing, which is what it costs to park now.”

  “Try looking at the bright side, Chief,” I suggested sweetly. “With all that extra revenue pouring into the city’s coffers, maybe they’ll give you a raise.”

  “Or maybe I’ll have to add checking a lot of parking meters to everything else I do,” he pointed out. “Sort of a combination bold guardian of justice and unpaid meter maid.” He leaned down to hand me the ticket, and without so much as an awkward pause, asked me out. “How about having dinner with me tonight? We can go over the parking meter crisis in greater detail.”

  “Does that mean you aren’t going to ticket me after all, officer?” I inquired. “Seeing as how we’ll be discussing important civic issues over this impromptu dinner?”

  He chuckled. “Nice try. Dinner’s on me, but the speeding ticket’s still going to cost you twenty-five bucks. These winding mountain roads are dangerous at thirty, let alone fifty-five. Besides, you might have run over an endangered trout,” he said. “Consider yourself lucky I don’t write you up for trying to bribe an officer of the law with an offer of…”

  “What?” I cried. “Just who invited whom to dinner, here, anyway?”

  “You can mail that in, or pay it in person, down at the courthouse. You’ve got five days.”

  “I’ve never known a place where you don’t have two weeks to pay a stupid traffic ticket,” I grumbled.

  “You might be shocked and saddened to learn how many visiting fly fishermen skip town without taking care of their legal obligations,” he explained mournfully. “Especially when they haven’t bagged their limit. There’s a shortage of trout, around here, you know.”

  I made a face. “Yeah, I think I heard that, somewhere. Anyway, since you’re not going to be reasonable about this ticket, I’m afraid you’ll have to eat dinner alone tonight. Or maybe try your luck with the next female motorist you ensnare in your little speed trap.”

  The chief raised one eyebrow. “On what Frank Murphy pays you, you’re turning down a free meal?”

  “How do you know what I get paid?” I asked suspiciously.

  “I know Frank. He still pays his babysitter seventy-five cents an hour, and for that, he expects her to do the dinner dishes before she goes home.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I conceded as he walked back to the squad car.

  “Dinah’s Diner,” he called over his shoulder. “It’s on Elm Street, across from the bowling alley. Seven thirty, sharp.”

  “And why would I even want to have dinner with someone who’s just given me a fucking speeding ticket?” I demanded.

  “Because I have very nice blue eyes, and Verna Bailey says you’re a sucker for men with blue eyes. If you really want to get on my good side, though, you’ll need to watch the swearing. I’m easily shocked.”

  “Verna told you about me?”

  He grinned. “Let’s see if I remember it all. You grew up in Los Angeles, bailed out of college after three years, and worked in New York for a gossip rag until it went under. Your parents live in Florida. You’re thirty-one, you’re single, and you can’t cook. You hate peas, your favorite food is Japanese, and your favorite movie is Lawrence of Arabia. You only wear shoes when you’re forced to, and you sleep in the raw, even in winter. Someone should have warned you about Verna. The town’s never really needed a newspaper with her around. Besides, with the way you ignore parking tickets, you’re going to need a friend in high places, and except for the mayor, I’m as high as it gets in Mountain Lakes.”

  “How did you know about my parking—?” I began.

  “Parking violations are public records. All the experts say you should check out the people you date very carefully. Their credit, criminal tendencies, etc.”

  I’m not especially proud of it, but by one o’clock the following morning, after spending just under six hours in the chief’s company, I was more than willing—okay, panting— to hop into the sack with him. But Chief McConnell wasn’t ready to be seduced. We necked in the car for a while, after which he walked me to my front door, kissed me goodnight, and waited until I was safely inside. Then, he got back in the car and drove away, leaving me to wonder if my sex appeal was already on the wane at less than thirty-two. Not that I’d had a lot of opportunities to try it out recently—my sex appeal, that is. My last orgasm (involving another living person, at least) had been two years earlier. At thirty-one, I was in a serious erotic slump.

  Date number two lifted my spirits considerably. By nine-thirty, after leaving the movies mid-way by mutual consent, Chief McConnell had already enjoyed carnal knowledge of me— twice. He was gearing up for a third round when he looked down and noticed the ghost of what had once been my only tattoo.

  “What is it?” he asked, pointing to the area in question. “It’s too blurry to make out.”

  I flushed. “I had it removed—sort of.”

  “So, what was it, before you had it sort of removed?”

  “I’d rather not say, actually.”

  He grinned. “We law enforcement professionals have ways of making people talk, you know.”

  “It’
s uh…It’s nothing, really,” I stammered. “It was dumb of me to get it in the first place. I’m not usually that kind of person—the kind that gets tattooed, I mean. And in that—well, in that sort of place.” (Don’t ask.)

  “So far, I’ve learned that you drive like a bat out of hell, collect unpaid parking tickets like grocery coupons, cuss like a drunken sailor, and try to seduce men on the first date. If that tattoo wasn’t for the Hell’s Angels or the Aryan Sisterhood, I’ll be happy.”

  “You’ll laugh at me,” I grumbled.

  “I won’t laugh at you—probably.”

  “It was the usual thing,” I admitted. “A big, red heart. I did it in the tenth grade, at a carnival—for Valentine’s Day. I had to lie about my age, not that the guy who did it cared. My mom just about had a cow, and wanted to sue everybody in sight. Anyway, there used to be this inscription—Emma and Eddie, Together Through Eternity.”

  He nodded sympathetically. “I’m guessing the love affair with Eddie didn’t pan out.”

  “You could say that. I saw the little creep through algebra, teenage acne, braces, and the demise of his truly appalling rock band. Then, in our senior year, he knocked up my best friend, Melissa, and they eloped to Tijuana. They’ve got four kids, now, and last time I saw Eddie, he still had pimples.”

  “Poetic justice,” Jeff observed solemnly.

  “Like hell,” I growled. “Justice would have been if he got the clap and his dick fell off. Melissa weighs around two-fifty now, so that’s something, I guess.” I sighed. “I’ve never been what you might call lucky in love.”

  Jeff smiled. “Things could change.” And with that, he pushed me gently back onto the pillows, leaned down, and kissed my left nipple. For a minute or so, I allowed things to go along in the very pleasant direction in which they were headed, but then, as his warm mouth traveled south, toward the tattoo, I sat up abruptly.